Three shots ring out in close succession, and the woman’s shawl-shrouded body slumps to the ground. Whoops, cheers and praise to Allah follow another four shots into her inert form. The latest video footage to come out of Afghanistan purports to show the execution of an allegedly adulterous woman at the hands of the Taliban. The video, filmed last month on a mobile phone and obtained by Reuters, is shocking. But even more atrocious is the fact that such incidents are on the rise in Afghanistan, from Taliban executions to gruesome punishments like cutting off noses and ears, whippings and the forced amputations of hands for accusations of theft. The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission notes that cases of extreme violence against women are on the rise — some are Taliban-inflicted, but many are simply eruptions of ancient forms of tribal justice unchecked by Afghan society and the government. The Taliban, after all, based their extreme edicts not just on a fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law but also on tribal traditions that predate Islam. This latest video, as many have pointed out, supposedly presages the fate of Afghanistan’s women when foreign troops pull out over the next 2½ years. But the fact that such punishments continue to be meted out even with some 100,000 foreign troops still on the ground in Afghanistan is an indication that when it comes to women’s rights at least, the 11-year experiment in nation building has come to very little. And that has less to do with the commitment to women than with the weak support for education across the board.

Sure, more than 3 million Afghan girls are in school today, more than ever before in the history of Afghanistan, up from nearly zero in 2000. But few of those girls go on to secondary school, and those who do are usually in the urban areas. Rural Afghanistan, as evinced by the video, has changed little. That execution took place in Shinwari district, about an hour’s drive from the paved roads and glass-fronted office blocks of Kabul, but centuries away in terms of development.

Of course, the video’s release couldn’t have been more timely: it came out the same day as a major donors’ meeting in Tokyo, where more than 70 nations pledged $16 billion in Afghan development aid over the next four years. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vowed to stand by Afghanistan’s women in her statement, telling conferencegoers, “The United States believes strongly that no nation can achieve peace, stability and economic growth if half the population is not empowered.” The way forward, she said, “must include fighting corruption, improving governance, strengthening the rule of law [and] increasing access to economic opportunity for all Afghans, especially for women.” She added that U.S. President Barack Obama would be asking Congress to keep American civilian assistance to Afghanistan near current levels well into 2017. That may be a difficult sell in a country grown weary of its outsize financial commitment to Afghanistan over the past decade, especially when it seems to have achieved so little.

But of the estimated $545 billion the U.S. has spent in Afghanistan, very little has gone to the kind of programs that would make an enduring difference in women’s lives, like high school and university education. Economic-empowerment schemes for women, from handicrafts-training to agricultural programs, may look good to taxpayers back home, but they aren’t sustainable, and the projects dry up as soon as the money does. According to Agence France-Presse, the U.S. says it has contributed some $316 million to teacher-training programs and that out of the 175,000 teachers in Afghanistan, about a third of them are women. Frankly, that’s not enough teachers, nor female teachers, for 12.6 million children under the age of 14. The U.N. Girls’ Education Initiative estimates that only 18% of women ages 15-24 can read, compared with 50% for men in the same age group. Clinton can speak all she wants about a commitment to women’s rights, but it won’t mean much until Afghan women can speak for themselves. And they won’t be able to do that without education.

An ongoing international commitment to rule of law, economic development and security will be necessary to stabilize Afghanistan once foreign forces leave. But none of that will have much long-term impact if education is not made a priority. So if any good is to come from the latest horror to emerge from Afghanistan, let it not take the form of a futile rage over the barbaric acts of ignorant men, but rather a renewed commitment to educating men, and women, about their basic human rights.

Baker is TIME‘s Middle East bureau chief, based in Beirut. Find her on Twitter at @arynebaker. You can also continue the discussion on TIME‘s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIMEWorld.

Aryn Baker is the Middle East Bureau Chief for TIME, covering politics, society, culture, religion, the arts and the military in the greater Middle East, including Pakistan and Afghanistan. She currently resides in Beirut, Lebanon.

This freaking religion is the cost of sow much pain around the world, people alway's try to deny it but this religion is from freaking satan, we should just cut our looses and move on and let them worship Lucifer, the angel that freaking Mohaamed heard was not Gabriel it was Lucifer ass simple ass that' don't forget the devil can take many shapes, and even voices to spread it's evil intention's, Allah is not god it's freaking satan that's why all terrorist are muslim's, they say bullshit like it's because they are not well educated, or they live in poberty thats nothing more than a bunch of crap because western converts are well educated and and are well behaved before they convert to this satonic religion then what do they whant to do is to overthrow there goverment's and inforce shariah law, scooning woman, beating woman, shooting woman in the head like they are animals and not human beings that can feel payn, and that suffer giving birth to children. This freaking animals anger me sow much evrey time i watch the news i pray to god, the reall god that they whon't show a muslim man decapetating his daughters because they did a mistake or they use whanted freedom like the muslim father in India that sever his own daughters head becaused she refused to recurned to her husban, fucking hell this just pisses me off i just have one wish for god i wish god would come with his army and exterminate this horrible religion that Lucifer created, but for know i just wish all this innocent woman, girls, and wifes gow to a better place to paradice and enjoy eternal happines away from this horrible religion. It angers me that they call them selves warrior's of god and justice, the only justice every one of this muslim will get its the fire's of eternal suffering, punishment, and condemnation for there crimes against woman, girls, infedels, and desecrating gods glory and compassion. I hate when people try to compare my god with there god, there freaking god it's nothing more than a murderrer that encourages biolence against those that don't believe in it, those that try to compare them are playing right into the devils trap thats all they are doing. Im a strong supporter of womans rights an can't collarate this muslims, and yes im a man.

As the article and pretty much all of the comments here show, Americans simply do not understand Afghan culture, and almost certainly never will. In an attempt to clarify (although I feel like I am trying to clear several square miles of garbage): the Taliban deny they have anything to do with this killing (if it even is a real killing). There is no reason not to believe this, unless you have been brainwashed to just blame everything bad that happens on the Taliban. They gained grass-roots support among Afghans by stoning rapists to death, for example, unlike the situation in NATO controlled areas, where such criminals would, more often than not, receive no punishment at all. No, the rape victim is not blamed for the rape, contrary to what many Americans, incredibly, believe. And people keep going on and on about women's rights. Can you not understand that this is a different culture? The women themselves see the roles of men and women quite differently from Americans, and are not all that interested in changing their culture. Forcing modern American notions about the relations between the sexes on people who are neither very interested nor impressed by American culture is not a recipe for success.

As soon as NATO leaves the Taliban will almost certainly take over the country, not because they are so violent, but because people actually support them. The Taliban were not overtly anti-American at first, and actually sent condolences on 9/11. Yes, they gave Bin Laden asylum, but that was due to their own laws and customs which they were bound to follow. Can Norway be accused for giving asylum to a mass murderer for not executing Breivik and for allowing him to live in ease? No, because they are following their own laws according to their own customs and culture. It is closer to American culture, therefore Americans can understand it. Afghan culture is too different from American culture, and so they will probably never be able to understand it. And so the inevitable and unfortunate outcome of this tragic, miserable, ill-conceived and utterly useless war is failure for the US and NATO.

It is totally bullshit, attacking and occupying a soverign country, killing thousands of innocents including wemen amp; children, carpet bombing, massacring poor villagers, putting a pupett govt. in the name of so-called war against terror. Is this called nation building? Shame!!

Even a million years of education will not civilise these inhuman fossil brains, thanks to ISlam.... these muslims olny know how to slaughter women and fly planes into buildings...may god eliminate ths scourge from te planet soon

It is the pre Islamic tradition of the people of this region and of south asia. Islam, Russian at their peak time, British at their peak time and now US could not educate them, a histyorical tragedy. Another recent incident of this kind is of Dr. Rumi Nath from the Indian state of Assam. She, a member of legislative assembly of Assam, secretly married a facebook friend (a muslim) in spite of her present husband. This angered right wing hindu groups and attached and assaulted her severely with an attempt to murder. Police somehow saved her at the last moment. Later these groups defended the act that She went against the hindu values and traditions. US already sacrified a lot in Afghanistan and they should do little more I think.

Islam has a history of brutality. Read Islamic history. It was forced and preached with a sword in one hand and Koran in the other. Even today in most Islamic nations if a Muslim converts to any other religion they are killed. Most other cultures and countries are RETALIATEING against of Islam. Read Koran, it says it is OK to kill infidels. No other religion preaches violence like Islam does.

You can misinterpret Koran or propagate the western propaganda. But that's not true. You will not find in the history of Islam, some thing like holocaust or inquisition. Islam never killed people in the scale of 6 million. Of course some mistakes are there. Koran does not say OK to kill infidels or polytheist, it said to go against those infidels or polytheist who deny or go against the covenant. Koran even said if you kill one innocent man you are killing whole mankind.

Ignorance is the problem with you. How many muslim countries you visited to make such sweeping comments? Christians are killing Jews for last 2000 yrs, still could not finish and finally exported the problem to Palestine. Christians are killing muslims for almost 1000 yrs in the crusades directed by pope. How many people were killed who deserted islam? Then why these so many western christians are embracing Islam of late? Terrorist have no religion, Islam distanced itself from suicide bombing. How many muslim terrorists are there, may be few 100s out of 2 bn muslims, thus all muslims are not bad, extremist or communal.

Why should west propagate any propaganda against Islam? Is it doing against any other religion? I am living in US for 25+ years and I do not see US or west doing it against any other religion including Jewish religion, Hinduism or Buddhism etc. Sure there are extreme right wing Christians who are like extremist Islamists who condemn other religions but they do not resort to violence like it is done by the extremist Muslims. There are very orthodox Jews who do not go round killing Christians or Hindus or Buddhists. There are Churches, Synagogues, Mosques, Temples both Buddhist and Hindu in US and they are all allowed to pray to whom ever they want to. In Islamic countries such religious freedom just doesn't exist. Why are Muslims so afraid to allow religious freedom? If a person thinks that Islam is the way to go, he will become a Muslim otherwise he/she will follow what ever religion they want to. Why do Muslims do not have confidence in their religion that if given a choice most people would follow Islam. Islam always has to be imposed in people with a sword or guns now a days. Why kill people who convert out of Islam. No other religion does it. The biggest problem is Islam does not have the concept of separation of church and state which is very important for 21st century civilized countries. That is why almost all Muslim countries are so backward socially.

Someday, these women will learn enough to know how to dispense poison, themselves.

Beware, evil Taliban men. Your days are numbered. When your women finally realize they have nothing left to lose and are in complete and total despair, you'll never sleep another night in your lives. Those who were "married" at 12, to men 30 years older than them, have resentment so deep-seated, when it all comes to the surface your payment will be severe. It's coming...

All around, wherever we look, wherever we go, a trail of blood and hatred follows us. If it's not Afganistan, its Syria or Yemen or Nigeria, or the terrorists in Philipiness or Al Qaeda or Saudi or the mess in Egypt or Yemen, Libya, Pakistan,Tunisia...Srbrenica anyone!! Suicide bombing!

Islam, fanatical Islam is the scourge of our century and it is a fearsome terrifying beast that needs to be put down.....Don't the Muslims run around on TV with placards saying "Death to Amercia" or" Death to the West" or "Death to Salman Rushdie"......well...I say "Death to radical Islam"....Reading this article simply reinforces the belief that these people are barbarians and are not civilised......a sentiment , if voiced aloud,which will get you killed in any of the above countries!!

"All around, wherever we look, wherever we go, a trail of blood and hatred follows us. If it's not Afganistan, its Syria or Yemen or Nigeria, or the terrorists in Philipiness or Al Qaeda or Saudi or the mess in Egypt or Yemen, Libya, Pakistan,Tunisia...Srbrenica anyone!! Suicide bombing!"

It's nothing short of a miracle to see America still standing tall with so many brain-dead people living, breeding, and voting in it.

So according to the Western media, the 'Taliban' shot and killed a woman who committed adultery, and we're supposed to fume up and explode in anger and shock. Anyone who committs a crime in Afghanistan is now a Taliban. Well, I got news for all you brain-dead farm animals: Not every crime in Afghanistan is committed by the Pashtun tribal fighters of Southern Afghanistan, who controlled the government from 1996-2001 (aka Taliban). Yes, this may be too much for your brain to digest all at once, because it doesn't quite fall in line with the brain-murdering you've received from the media for the past 11 years, but that's good enough for you to think about for now.

Who the hell are you to be the moral judge, jury, and executioners of every good, bad, and ugly in this world?

Who gave you the authority to worry about every ill in every remote mud hut of every nation? Why don't you worry about your own gang bangers, your own Wall Street murderers who destroyed your economy, your own homeless, your own millions in jails, your own millions on welfare, your own millions hungry, your own crime rate that's #1 on earth.

Let me provide you with something to wrap that vegetable you call brain:

What these people did to this woman is not allowed in their religion or their culture. Their religion does not allow killing unless it's an eye-for-an-eye situation.

The fact of the matter is, though, these people have grown up under constant carpet bombing for the past 33 years, and the fact that they don't do this on an hourly basis to each other is a miracle unto itself.

You want them to be like you when they can't even find clean water to drink.

You want them to act like civilized little boarding school graduates when they can't even figure out if they're gonna live tomorrow.

Wanna know how people act according to their environment? You don't have to bother looking at Afghanistan; look at your own black ghettos. Go there and tell them to quit stealing, quit robbing, quit gang banging, quit drive-by shooting, quit selling crack, quit sagging their pants, quit raping their neighbors, quit smoking dope. Why worry about a far away foreign country when all those problems are right under your noses, if you could put them down for two seconds, to be able to see...

Afghanistan didn't have these types of crimes before the Soviet invasion. The country was not awashed in weapons. It actually had a government that made even thinking of committing these crimes impossible. There are proverbs in the Afghan languages about how every criminal's worse nightmare is a police officer's shiny belt buckle.

All this garbage is happening because of FOREIGN aggression and invasion.

Did Afghanistan invade the Soviet Union? No, it was the other way around

Did Afghanistan invade the United Kingdom 3 times? No, it was the opposite

Did Afghanistan invade the United States? No, the opposite

Did Afghanistan have a hand in 9/11? No, according to the official story, 19 Arabs were involved. So why invade Afghanistan? Because they refused to hand over UBL. Did you provide them evidence that UBL was involved? No, you threatened them.

Did you take them on their offer in 1998-2001 to take UBL out of their hands? No, you didn't want to speak to them because they were treating women poorly.

Did you find UBL in Afghanistan? No, you found and killed him in Pakistan. So why not invade Pakistan? Because Pakistan is your b*tch, so it's ok.

No sane and true Afghan patriot in Afghanistan wants these low life cab drivers such as Karzai, etc. in Afghanistan. These guys are your puppets just like all of the Arab dictators are your puppets. Stop imposing leaders upon other people, and maybe they'll respect you.

In the end, all those people who are fighting against the puppet government and foreign forces are not Taliban. The Taliban was one of the many group of fighters that happen to emerge out of the Kandahar/Helmand areas. They took over the government for a few years, and after 2001, they retreated back to their homeland. Today, every province in Afghanistan has it's own warlords and commanders, who operate their own little militias. The fact that Western media calls all of them Taliban doesn't make them Taliban. That's just a word to keep you farm animals from tripping over your own stupidity.

So quit being farm pigs, and quit eating anything they feed you without questioning it.

It's a shame that Karzai and his band of brigands are just the same as the guys in this video. If they weren't, they'd take steps to arrest all of people in the video, horsewhip them for witnessing this atrocity and doing nothing, and then warn them that if they ever, ever, abuse a woman again, the next punishment will much worse. These people are from the 14th or 15th century; they may drive Toyotas (or fire Stingers), but their mindset/culture understands nothing more than sheer, brutal, naked force...

I see what this video as a reflection of the evil which humanity is capable of. Those who generalize its culprits to all Muslims are repeating the mistake Nazis committed against Jews - 1) stereotyping 2) acting on that false image.

What's more, with the advent of the internet, it is easy to tune into news items which reinforce preexisting ideas. Sometimes these ideas are constructive, other times destructive.

Then why don’t your religious leaders take action against this type of behavior? Why do they *basically* remain silent? There should be no amount of money your religious leaders should spend in advertising condemnation of these atrocities. But they remain basically silent (oh, sure when a reporter puts a microphone in their face they make some platitudes of repudiation, but that’s about it.)

And what exactly are you doing? You're not blabbering on about Islam, 9/11, this and that on the INTERNET?

You think it makes you morally or physically superior by calling someone a caver dweller or something online?

I promise you, you'd get your teeth knocked into your a**hole with a single punch if you say something in front of me. Now, quit being a farm pig, and quit eating every pile of dog sh*t they throw in front of you to eat. Wake up and think for yourself for once. You've been brain-f*cked so bad, you could start your own colony.

I don't believe that unless Taliban also execute their own corrupted leaders the same way. They are no real Taliban. Real Taliban are local defenders, they don't do those outdated religious rituals for the sake of those local religious authorities, languages and barbaric rules. War sellers, stop lying.

This is our "non- NATO close ally", a country stuck in the...in the...in the...Stone Age(?), its people condoning the stoning of women for adultery (a bullet is not so different from 100 rocks when only the result is considered)?

After our failure at Tora-Bora, we should have withdrawn and put all our efforts into finding Bin Laden and dismantling Al-Qaeda using Intelligence and Special Forces. We have no business fooling with such a tribal nation's politics, and won't be successful "rebuilding" Afghanistan.

Good point, but most people in Afghanistan are outraged by this bullcrap. It's just that most of them have the 'if it doesn't hurt me personally, I'm not going to give my life to stop it' way of thinking.

This underscores how futile the West's efforts are to "bring democracy" or even assist a lawless and savage culture of corrupt warlords. The notion we are spending billions of dollars to "arm and train" these people makes me sick.

There is nothing to do for them. They are going to have to fend for themselves like every other godforsaken place.

Dru, you have just superficial knowledge and try to talk like an expert. There are many Afghanis who want to come into the 21st century and be modern. Unfortunately they are militarily weak. Taliban with the covert support of Pakistan do not want Afghanistan to be a modern society. We are faced with a much bigger problem than just Afghanistan. Pakistan does not want US to succeed in Afghanistan. First of all US should have left Soviet Union in Afghanistan. It is US that supported Osama in the first place against Soviet Union and after routing the soviets, Osama turned against US. US needs to have much better vision and strategy than short sighted short term policies.

Superficial knowledge? I have been to 6 continents, studied human evolution at the #2 department in the US, am a trial attorney and also own a business in a nearly $6 billion industry. How can you credibly contend I am unable to proffer my own opinion? Despite your misspelled moniker, there is nothing liberal or sparkling about your analysis.

Tell me, even assuming, arguendo, that are, in fact, "many Afghanis who want to come into the 21st century and be modern"? Why should precious US fiscal resources be allocated to enforce a Police Power over a sovereign state- much less one that is not a trade partner or ally?

(cricket, cricket)

Remember all the promises that George W. Bush (I'm sure you voted for same) made about the "benefits" that would flow from Arab occupation? None proved to be true. All we have lost is military, fiscal and diplomatic capital. Afghanistan will never be "modernized"...period.

Or does your own reservoir of "knowledge" not subscribe to the theory that "those that cannot learn from the lessons of history are condemned to repeat the same mistakes"?

Ridiculous! You have no knowledge of history, religion and politics with respect to Osama. Osama was probably a kid when Iran's revolution happened. Why would he join US in routing USSR from Afghanistan in the 80s if he did not like what US did with Shah in the 70s. Also Osama is a sunni muslim and iranians are shia muslims and sunni fundamentalists hate shias because they are heretics. So you ARE deaf, blind and have 1/10th of brain functioning.

This should send a warning to all civilized nations about Islamic extremists. We should have learnt from 9/11 itself what the Islamic fundamentalists are all about and we forget and forgive and time and again they remind us of their dark age thinking and cave dwelling life style. The world must declare war against Islamic fundamentalism and eradicate it once and for all. Pakistan itself has many Islamic extremists like Taliban and Al_Qaeda and since Pakistan is a poor country, majority of them, are sympathizers of Islamic fundamentalism. Imagine what they would do if Pakistan's nuclear weapons fall in their hands or control. All hell will break loose on the civilized world. The civilized world must unite and take care of Pakistan, Taliban and Al-Qaeda once and for all.

Out! Out of that part of the world. There's nothing we can do to change centuries of tradition, no matter how odious that tradition may be. Let the people learn from each other and try to make changes at their own pace. We have no business messing with them. We are just making them hate us more. Get out!!!

You might want to start by eradicating your oil business with the Saudi Wahhabi establishment, who are the heart, brains, and blood of this fundamentalism.

So once again, the fingers point right back at u. How come there were no suicide bombers, extremists, etc before the petro dollars start pouring out of Saudi Arabia into these poor Muslim countries and establish their garbage Wahhabi cult there???

I agree with you that the Wahhabi establishment is the heart, brain and blood of fundamentalism. But the royalty that rules Saudi Arabia is scared of the religious clerics who are the real Wahhabi. US and other countries do oil business with the royalty not the clerics (the heart, brain and blood of terrorism). The finances that pour into countries like Pakistan and Yemen etc are from the religious/terrorist establishment of Saudi Arabia not the Saudi Royalty. They might have supported before Islamic fundamentalism before 9/11 but after 9/11 most of the funding is from the religious clerics of Saudi Arabia

You should get your facts right. The 9/11 plot was planned in Afghanistan under the Taliban government. Taliban are Pashtun tribe from AFGHANISTAN. The team that executed the act comprised of people from Saudi Arabia (Mohammed Atta) but also many Pakistanis. Taliban gave shelter and support to Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. Mullah Omar is an Afgani Taliban who was very close to Osama. Although Osama was originally from Saudi Arabia, he left Suadi Arabia because he was not welcome and found Pakistan and Afghanistan to be his safe heavens. Saudi are responsible in the sense the hard core Islamic fundmentalists in Saudi Arabia, the Wahhabis, provided recruits for Osama and monetary and financial help.

How can Afghanistan be considered a "failed" state when it was never a successful one to begin with? These people are barely one step out of the stone-age. Nobody, not even Alexander the Great, has ever been able to form a nation out of these primitive tribes.

Wake up America! The only reason we invaded Afghanistan is because that is where 90% of the worlds heroin is produced. It had nothing to do with terrorism. It was just an excuse to seize the poppy fields so the drug profits could be funneled to corrupt US politicians and their cronies.

I thought we were paying them NOT to grow poppies! But people in abject poverty have a real incentive to produce a poppy crop. And the Taliban likes the profits. Buys a lot of weapons and ammo. Nobody else seems to be armed like they are, or they would fight back!

What we should do is just legalize the drug trade and move on. We have tried drug prohibition and it doesn't work. Bottom line is that people do NOT have the right to tell other people what they can and cannot put into their own bodies.